These included names that may ring a bell for some, like Bobbi-Kar, Playboy, Keller, Airway, Californian, King Midget, Davis, and more. Only one attained the size and scale necessary to challenge America’s largest automakers and that was Kaiser-Frazer, formed by legendary businessman Henry J Kaiser and Graham-Paige CEO Joseph Washington Frazer.

The two men managed to produce a car that was fully competitive with the best Detroit had to offer, in one of the largest factories in the world, while overcoming thousands of problems large and small. The big question is how was Kaiser-Frazer (K-F) able to take on the Big Three automakers in America- not to mention the larger Independents? Here’s the interesting story, in pictures and words: